Future Poems
The British
by Benjamin Zephaniah
Take some Picts, Celts and Silures
And let them settle,
Then overrun them with Roman conquerors.
Remove the Romans after approximately 400 years
Add lots of Norman French to some
Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Vikings, then stir vigorously.
Mix some hot Chileans, cool Jamaicans, Dominicans,
Trinidadians and Bajans with some Ethiopians, Chinese,
......
The Man With The Hoe (Written After Seeing Millet's World-Famous Painting)
by Edwin Markham
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?
......
Duino Elegies: The First Elegy
by Rainer Maria Rilke
Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure and are awed
because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying.
And so I force myself, swallow and hold back
the surging call of my dark sobbing.
......
The City Planners
by Margaret Atwood
Cruising these residential Sunday
streets in dry August sunlight:
what offends us is
the sanities:
the houses in pedantic rows, the planted
sanitary trees, assert
levelness of surface like a rebuke
to the dent in our car door.
No shouting here, or
shatter of glass; nothing more abrupt
......
In Me, Past, Present, Future Meet
by Siegfried Sassoon
In me, past, present, future meet
To hold long chiding conference.
My lusts usurp the present tense
And strangle Reason in his seat.
My loves leap through the future’s fence
To dance with dream-enfranchised feet.
In me the cave-man clasps the seer,
And garlanded Apollo goes
Chanting to Abraham’s deaf ear.
......
Foreshadowing
by Evelyn Judy Buehler
Lavender roses
tossed in bright, silver sunlight
Chrysanthemum spells.
Lilies of the valley ring
just when redbirds start to sing.
Marmalade clouds roam
into pink skies of evening-
Jade cactus passion!
Moon appeared, fortunes to tell
......
days of old
by linz azodracgetting older and getting steadily colder. the fun seems to get more scarce as each second passes by. will I end up one of those sad old ladies, bitter and alone? will I have cats instead of children, and paper instead of someone to talk to? will I share my life with no one fully, but be eager to talk to anyone who will listen? or will I wake up one day wondering where my life has gone? wake up to three screaming kids and a husband I don't even remember loving. watching late night tv just so he's asleep by the time I go to bed. will I be a hypocrite? will I forget I ever knew how to live? time is just too cruel for words...
Continue readingThe Pully
by Arvin Dassad
Don't let tomorrow forget who brought it today,
It should be thankful,
after all today is a gift,
as it is forever memorialized as the present,
Every moment passes,
standing on the laurels of quarrels,
no,
dismay,
yet its pockets weigh heavy,
......
To My Future Lover
by Nad SZA
To my future lover,
This is me before I met you
I am tired, exhausted from the unrequited love.
That seems to follow me like a shadow.
I have almost given up on the idea of true love
Feeling like I am not worth loving for
People come and go, leaving me feeling empty.
......
Listen!
by Michael R. Burch
Listen
by Michael R. Burch
Listen to me now and heed my voice;
I am a madman, alone, screaming in the wilderness,
but listen now.
Listen to me now, and if I say
that black is black, and white is white, and in between lies gray,
I have no choice.
......
